Wizard thoughts

[Skandranon]

In the fine tradition of the Lurker Lounge and me posting things on it, I thought I would just briefly go over my experience of the Wizard so far. I'm just going to attach some thoughts to each ability and rune thereof that I have currently had some personal experience with. There's obviously some bias in that I've chosen to play my Wizard in a very traditional glass cannon damage-dealer style. I don't know if any other style is possible, but I've allowed for the possibility. I just won't know too much about it. I'll update this as I play with other possibilities and discover new things.

Part 1, Signature spells

Magic Missile, Charged Blast:

Solid enough starting ability. Straight line, hits one target. The real version that's worth talking about is Charged Blast, which delivers a reasonable chunk of damage at range. As a Signature spell this is always going to be a secondary ability, since you will always want to frontload Arcane Power consuming abilities at the start of a fight in order to take advantage of its rapid regeneration. In essence, Arcane Power is the "cooldown" restricting uses of your most powerful abilities, and Signature abilities are merely fillers in your rotation. I find that this is the best of the bunch.

Split:

You gain 7% weapon damage at the cost of possibly having some of those projectiles intercepted by other things. For single-boss encounters this is okay, but you sort of have to know when those are coming up to make the switch.

Penetrating Blast:

Gives this spell a slight AoE capability in straight lines. This is actually not a bad shape at all, but the Wizard's arsenal is replete with AoE abilities. It is tough single targets that the Wizard struggles against, and this doesn't really do much for that.

Shock Pulse, Fire Bolts:

Its unpredictable nature and short range make Shock Pulse impossible to use at any longer than medium range, but the tradeoff is a lot more damage than Magic Missile and at least at the start of the game, this tradeoff is definitely worth it. Fire Bolts increase the damage but retain the base spell's drawbacks, which become increasingly more significant as you progress in the game.

Explosive Bolts:

Reliable screen-clearer for all of Normal difficulty while soloing. Loses some of its appeal in higher difficulties (when standing close enough to Shock Pulse is not a great idea) and multiplayer (when you are not certain to be killing every enemy). If you're soloing or duoing, though, this utterly ruins large packs of weaker mobs without even having to use any other ability.

Piercing Orb:

The orb moves forward in an exaggerated S-shape. The curves are very large and unpredictable, which means it retains the disadvantage of possibly not hitting what you aim at. It gives up three bolts of 105% damage for one orb of that much damage, essentially cutting the output of this spell in half (making some generous assumptions). On the upside, it at least gains range out to the edges of the screen. At this level I found that there were easily better options.

Spectral Blade, Deep Cuts:

For the description "any enemies in your path", I was greatly disappointed to learn that this is a melee range ability that hits a fairly tiny AoE directly in front of you. In addition to that, the damage is not spectacular. Given how I built my Wizard (more on that later) a melee-range ability is completely out of the question. Perhaps a more sturdily built Wizard might be able to use this ability, but such a build would be even more desperate to get the damage that this ability lacks. Deep Cuts retains all the disadvantages for a fairly minor DoT.

Impactful Blades:

The knockback is nice as an emergency saver, but the percentage chance is just too low, and honestly ability slots are far too valuable to waste on skills with only emergency use.

Siphoning Blades:

Against a base regeneration of 10 or 12 per second, restoring 1 Arcane Power per enemy hit while requiring the use of the unimproved Spectral Blades ability is too steep a trade to make.

Electrocute, Chain Lightning:

Long range filler ability. Electrocute fires anywhere you can click, and while the damage is low it has the ability to hit multiple targets even without a rune. Chain Lightning gives it even more of that ability and seems to extend the jump range a little as well. I would love Electrocute if it wasn't horribly bugged; although the tooltip claims it does 80% weapon damage, it actually does 40% weapon damage, which just doesn't measure up.

Forked Lightning:

At least to this point in the game, my critical chance hasn't budged from its base 5%. That is a 5% chance to proc 4 bolts, only one of which might maybe hit something. Not good enough.

Lightning Blast:

A huge fast-firing projectile that auto-pierces and has range out to the edge of the screen. If only it actually did good damage.

---

Part 2, Secondary abilities:

Ray of Frost, Snow Blast, Cold Blood:

This is one of the only Wizard spells which is really focused on being single-target, and it's the best at it. I admit I haven't given Ray of Frost as much testing as it probably deserves, mostly because its base form is so underwhelming. You generally want your Arcane Power consuming abilities to be your AoE answers, and because Ray of Frost is so resolutely not AoE (in its ray form, at least), it becomes difficult to justify it for anything that isn't a single target boss encounter. Problematically, single target boss encounters typically require you to be running all the time, which doesn't make standing in one spot channeling a spell very easy. By Act 4 Nightmare or later, ray-type spells are almost completely outclassed unless you can somehow figure out how to stand still long enough to cast them. You can do this for normal packs, but almost anything suffices for them, and anything genuinely threatening will not allow you the luxury of standing still.

Numb:

This might actually help with the "I have to stand still to cast it, but this guy is charging me" situation. For most open-world cases this does not help at all since the thing you don't want charging you has other champions in its pack, or a cloud of minions. I can think of a handful of cases where this could be useful, though. I'll be sure to try this out when I get there again.

Sleet Storm:

It replaces the ray and is pretty small for a storm. This is a PBAoE melee attack. I do not go in for melee attacks of any kind. Again, maybe a more tanky Wizard could make use of this, but judging from the damage I see handed out in the higher difficulties I have my doubts that any Wizard could ever stand up to enough hits to make this useful.

Arcane Orb, Obliteration, Arcane Nova, Tap the Source:

Fantastic fire-and-forget type Arcane Power consumer, which, despite its 10 yard explosion radius, also makes this one of the best AP powers for single-target boss fights, since you can just chuck a few at the boss on the run. The radius is sizable so it's usable out in the open world as well. Obliteration raises all damage done by a respectable amount. Arcane Nova raises the area, and Tap the Source allows you to fire off more orbs per unit of time, as well as getting you excellent efficiency per AP spent. The great virtue of Arcane Orb is that it's incredibly flexible. In the open world it mows down packs, in running battles it delivers probably the best damage on the go, in single target boss battles the damage is respectable. There's nothing it can't do, which is a good thing considering the deficiencies of many other AP powers.

Arcane Orbit:

Again designed for the possible tanky Wizard build, but if you're going to do that, just use Sleet Storm. There isn't enough AP to support them both.

Arcane Torrent:

A theoretically powerful AoE and single-target ability hamstrung by various disadvantages. The AoE is small, and like the ray abilities it requires that you stand still and channel to launch projectiles. To add to this, the projectile speed is slow and they are always aimed at a spot on the ground, even if you target an enemy. As the difficulty ramps up, fights are more and more on the move, which makes it harder and harder for Arcane Torrent to actually hit anything. In theory, if left unmolested, like in some multiplayer situations, the damage potential is high. I haven't seen it.

Disruption:

Essentially just raises Arcane Torrent's damage. There's some synergy potential here with other Wizards, maybe.

Death Blossom:

At no point do I find not controlling where my projectiles go to be a worthwhile trade, even for huge damage. They spray out randomly in a 360 degree arc while you still have to stand still and channel the spell. Perhaps useful if you are surrounded, but if you are surrounded you have much bigger things to worry about.

Disintegrate, Convergence:

The other ray spell in the Wizard's arsenal. I loved it and used it for as long as I could just because it was a giant death laser. Disintegrate does slightly less damage than Ray of Frost, but it has the huge advantage of piercing, so it damages everything it goes through and has respectable range to boot. Especially while soloing, the most common enemy formation is a line (more of an elongated ovoid, but line-ish enough) so Disintegrate typically attacks the entire enemy formation at once for heavy damage. Convergence adds a second beam that makes it even more effective at wrecking the enemy ovoid. For single targets this is directly inferior to Ray of Frost, having all the disadvantages and no appreciable advantage that I can see. Unfortunately, as higher difficulties become more and more running battles, Disintegrate becomes less and less applicable. It's doable so long as you have someone to tank for you, but anything anyone can tank isn't a threat, and as the boss modifiers pile up there will just be too many threats at range for you to ever cast a ray.

Chaos Nexus:

A powerful addition that attacks enemies (and pots, stumps, coffins, destructible architecture) that come as close as medium range with additional beams with respectable damage. If your main Disintegrate target is within this medium range it will take damage from both beams, putting Disintegrate's single target damage nearly up to Ray of Frost's. It extends Disintegrate's flexibility substantially. It doesn't, however, make it not a ray, which means that this doesn't make it any better on higher difficulties.

Volatility:

For early soloing this could be good in the same way that Explosive Bolts is good. In a multiplayer setting it happens too rarely to be of any value. And this also doesn't make it not a ray.

Entropy:

Disintegrate's range and piercing are probably two of its best attributes. Entropy takes them away, attaching all the disadvantages of a ray to a short-range fan. At the level you acquire this you will never use it.

Part 3, Defensive abilities:

Frost Nova, Cold Snap:

So far as I can tell nothing is immune to freeze, not even bosses, making this a very solid panic button. As difficulty ramps up, crowd control like this becomes even more significant. I do not currently use this but have been considering it more of late.

Shatter:

Against waves of small enemies this can keep them all locked up in frost while you kill them. At higher difficulties, increased enemy hp makes it less likely that you can chain novas back to back.

Frozen Mist:

The entire appeal of this ability is that it freezes things. Not freezing things just makes this a very poor damage spell.

Diamond Skin, Crystal Shell:

Powerful defensive ability that comes up twice as often as potions, but its limited duration makes it hard to use. Can be a definite lifesaver on higher difficulties and until you've achieved perfection in dodging all of the random things that boss mobs like to throw at you, this will always be useful, since you will always be taking a lot of damage one way or another.

Prism:

Reducing cost by 7 allows you to pop Diamond Skin and then powerfully front-load AP consuming powers, increasing the flexibility of Diamond Skin by making it applicable to every situation. With only six bar slots, you want the most flexible, generally applicable abilities in those slots. That's a good recommendation for Prism.

Mirror Skin:

Iffy on this one. Given the observed damage outputs and mob hp numbers, it doesn't make sense to put this on just to get hit. That isn't that much damage compared to mob hp, and if you get hit you probably want the extra protection from Crystal Shell, or the AP benefit from Prism if you happen to be able to not get hit.

Slow Time:

The bubble just goes up around you. This does let you get away, but it buys you a handful of seconds at best. The better use is for projectile deflection, as projectiles are very damaging in D3. Slowing them by 90% buys you a few moments to stand still and cast when being shot at. The main issue with this is flexibility, the same thing that works so well in Diamond Skin's favor. There will always be something for Diamond Skin to be useful for. Not so much Slow Time. It is possible on Hell difficulty that Diamond Skin may not be enough, and that Slow Time may be the only actual answer to projectiles.

Miasma, Time Warp, Time Shell:

All of these things debuff enemies in the bubble. If an enemy is close enough to you to be in the bubble, none of these things will be very helpful. Miasma is somewhat useful for kiting, which is sort of what happens in multiplayer when things go bad. I would imagine on higher difficulties, Slow Time-Miasma kiting might be the only way to get damage done, but I feel there are better options at that time.

Teleport, Safe Passage:

Just not as awesome as D1/2 teleport. The hefty cooldown, combined with the fact that you don't really want to be hopping through dungeons anyway (not that you could), relegates Teleport to escape panic button only, and frankly it's not a good one. It buys you a few seconds, but so do all of the other defensive abilities, and all the others buy you some time to shoot back, which Teleport doesn't. Where Safe Passage is concerned, you probably shouldn't be teleporting into places where you are going to still take damage. Sometimes you can't help it, but that just makes me wish I had Diamond Skin instead.

Wormhole:

The 1sec cooldown doesn't reset with subsequent teleports, so you can't use this to hop across the map. You can pull off three, maybe four teleports, at the outside, within the 1 second window. This may or may not let you completely disengage from mobs; I haven't tried it. If it does that it's probably a hardcore must.

Reversal:

This is actually built for offensive teleporting combined with melee range abilities. I have not yet found anything that I want to do that with, especially not a build that can afford to use a slot on Teleport, but I find the concept intriguing.

Part 4, Force abilities:

Wave of Force, Force Affinity:

This is a decent panic button. It doesn't buy you much time at all, but it makes up for it by also supplying its own damage, which is what you'd want to use that time for anyway. So far I wound up taking it off my bars when I realized just how infrequently I was using it, but it might make a comeback in higher difficulties. It would make an interesting combo with Teleport Reversal, although you can probably get the same damage in a less risky and cheaper way with other abilities.

Impactful Wave, Forceful Wave:

Buys you even more time, or more damage and less time. Overall I think I prefer the extra time. 60% weapon damage isn't enough to compensate for the reduced knockback.

Teleporting Wave:

I am at a loss to see how this benefits you in any way.

Energy Twister, Mistral Breeze, Gale Force:

Garbage. Not only does the twister move in a genuinely unpredictable path, meaning not even in any particular direction consistently, but the listed damage is if the enemy is in contact with the twister for all six seconds of its duration – yet it probably won't, since no enemy follows the bizarre paths it takes, and it even seems like the twister pushes the enemy away so that it won't. It actually does only 60% weapon damage per second and is likely to hit just once – this is as much damage as most abilities do on their secondary enhancements, not their main value. I have rarely managed to get any significant damage with this spell, and as Mistral Breeze and Gale Force don't modify these parts of the spell, they don't help it at all.

Raging Storm:

I have not tried this but I can say for certain that there's no way to collide two twisters on any kind of a consistent basis. Even if they do the payoff is the same 60% weapon damage per second. Unspectacular to say the least.

Hydra, Arcane Hydra, Lightning Hydra:

Interesting because you can fire and forget it and it will attack on the move. The downside is that even with runes the damage is very low. Another skill I haven't played with maybe as often as I should have. Definitely some potential for kiting.

Venom Hydra:

I feel like the pools of acid this leaves are contrary to the valuable things about Hydra, in that you and the enemies can be moving and Hydra still helps you out. I could be wrong.

Meteor, Molten Impact, Star Pact, Comet:

I really wanted to love Meteor, but the cost to damage ratio is actually quite poor, even with Molten Impact. Again, with the greater mobility of fights, it's harder to land meteors successfully. Even if you do place one and lure some enemies into it, you're never assured of hitting exactly what you want. Arcane Orb is generally just better – with Obliteration it hits for nearly as much for nearly half the cost, and being a projectile, if the enemy keeps moving toward you it'll hit them at some point, while you can still cleanly miss a Meteor with bad timing. The delay before it drops makes for tricky timing and in a higher-difficulty boss fight, you do not want to burden yourself with another complex task.

Meteor Swarm:

The meteors fall in completely random formations. Fun to look at but unreliable and it still has that killer delay.

Blizzard:

Very low damage for a sizable cost. 210% damage over 6 seconds works out to 35% a second, and again the enemies may not be in the Blizzard for the entire duration. That said, it does snare all enemies in it, even if it doesn't mention that, and it takes effect immediately, so for extended kiting it is far more reliable than Meteor. The slow also makes it somewhat better than Arcane Orb for this purpose.

Grasping Chill:

Somewhat useful if you're kiting large packs. I have not encountered this situation yet but I'm aware that this is a very likely situation to happen in higher difficulties. The slow might combine well in multiplayer with other more damaging abilities, such as other Wizards using Arcane Torrent or Disintegrate.

Frozen Solid:

Randomly freezing enemies is not of particular benefit. It is the leading enemy that is of concern, and with only a 20% chance, all it means is that frozen enemies will be left a little behind (but they'll catch up).

Snowbound:

Now this actually is useful. With the right abilities you can carpet the entire battlefield in Blizzards constantly. Although this is using up your AP to do very little damage, it's hard to understate the value of making sure that you and your allies are always faster than the opposition. One of the biggest problems with the running battles that ensue when nobody in your party can take a hit from a mob is that they are often the same speed or faster than you are, limiting your engagement window. Blizzard may kill them slower, but it also may enable allies to kill them faster and keep everyone safe to boot.

Part 5, Conjuration abilities:

Ice Armor, Chilling Aura:

Solid defensive buff spell. Anything attacking you gets frozen, buying you precious time to get clear. This works on a surprising number of bosses, at least in Normal. Another huge kiting aid, making sure that once you get caught, at least you don't stay caught. Chilling Aura is a big enhancement, slowing anything that approaches and making it even easier to stay out of harm's way. Still useful in higher difficulties although the predominance of ranged threats makes it less than optimal.

Crystallize:

An Armor increase of 15% isn't as great as it sounds. It probably translates to another 5% or so damage reduction, but this might be what a tanky build needs to succeed. I wouldn't know.

Storm Armor, Reactive Armor, Strike Back, Jagged Ice:

This is an offensive spell masquerading as an armor. To get full use out of it, it requires that you be able to take hits already. I'm lumping in Ice Armor's Jagged Ice rune since it's the same thing and equally useless. Even 100% weapon damage is not a good trade for being hit, and you're better off with an ability on your bar that actually kills them much faster than this or helps you stay alive.

Power of the Storm:

An interesting ability that I've thought about playing with. Unlike the reduction from Prism, this will be up all the time. This can make ray spells sustainable for a long period of time – of course, in order to be casting said ray spell long enough, or to need it for that long, you'll be playing multiplayer, and on the lower difficulties at that. It could combo well with Tap the Source to launch even more orbs, but a big issue is that the base ability is not really worth having.

Magic Weapon:

Invaluable buff. This doesn't just enhance your base weapon damage, it is a straight multiplier on your damage done after all other modifiers have been applied. This results in a massive damage increase, over and above the listed value, and this increase translates to every single spell that depends on weapon damage, which is nearly all of them. The power of this combined with other similar Wizard abilities can stack firepower to a devastating degree. Unless I have to turn into a pure crowd controller in later difficulties, I cannot ever imagine myself not using this.

Electrify:

I thought I saw this triggering off spells but I wasn't looking that closely. If what I think I saw was this triggering, then the arc is not very large.

Force Weapon:

The knockback is basically never, but the 5% extra weapon damage translates to even more damage when multiplied with everything else.

Conduit:

Against 5% extra damage, a chance at 1 Arcane Power isn't that compelling. It can be used in concert with Power of the Storm to further extend ray spells, but I feel like past Normal I'm always moving, and hence regenerating AP, more than I'm just standing still blasting away.

Familiar, Dartling:

This isn't a full minion. As it is unable to be attacked by enemies, it also can't draw attention from you, and it only attacks while you're firing – if you're moving it won't shoot. Its damage is therefore pretty weak and generally cosmetic in nature. Dartling lets the shots pierce, which is a small bonus but not really noteworthy.

Sparkflint:

This is why I have Familiar on my bars. This is a 12% multiplier on all damage done that stacks multiplicatively with Magic Weapon and likewise occurs after other modifiers. Together, Force Weapon and Sparkflint increase damage done by 28.8%. That's really hard to pass up. It does result in a bar full of essentially passive abilities, but the bonus of having things that just increase your damage done is that you'll never not want it. When slots are limited, flexibility rules, and nothing is more flexible than “do more damage with everything”.


Energy Armor, Energy Tap:

65% sounds like a lot, but in practice this is at most another 12% or so less damage taken. It's helpful, but it has a serious drawback in reducing your max AP. Staying alive is important, but you do this in order to kill them faster. With Energy Tap this ability accomplishes both things at once and becomes quite useful. Note that Armor in D3 is damage reduction from everything, with physical-only reduction falling under the logical heading of Physical Resistance instead.

Absorption:

Random AP restoration when getting hit isn't really that valuable, especially since this rune keeps the AP penalty. There are better ways to get this effect.

Part 6, Mastery abilities:

Explosive Blast, Unleashed, Short Fuse:

This is a PBAoE with a built-in delay. Melee range makes it difficult to use. The delay and cooldown don't help either. Again, probably another tool for a more durable Wizard, if such a mythical object exists.

Time Bomb:

With the right timing this could be a fantastic kiting tool. The damage to AP ratio is actually quite good. It could potentially combine very well with Blizzard. I'm not sure it would see much use in multiplayer, but this and Blizzard with Grasping Chill are definitely on my list of things to try in Hell solo.

Mirror Image, Simulacrum, Duplicates:

A panic button that can actually take the heat off you completely for a little while. The problem is that the images do not taunt, so the enemies are not guaranteed to go for them, and that they buy so very little time. In a running battle you're much better off with Blizzard if you want to keep them off you, since that lets you do it constantly instead of buying maybe two out of every fifteen seconds.

Archon:

A devastating cooldown that can and should be unleashed on any kind of challenge. Upon learning this, I immediately put it on my bars and proceeded to melt two act bosses in under ten seconds each. Obviously it's become less effective in Nightmare, but it's still a gigantic damage boost. Transforming into the archon gives you a PBAoE burst for a fairly mediocre amount of damage, but also replaces your mouse skills with things that are much more impressive. Your left click becomes a melee attack that bursts in an area for 250% weapon damage, and your right becomes a Disintegrate dealing 300% weapon damage. Importantly, these attacks do not consume AP or any other resource, so you can cast through the full duration of the spell, which makes it an even bigger damage boost than it first appears. Sadly, even the Armor and Resistance boost doesn't make it tanky enough to survive high difficulty bosses, but I've popped it and gone out in a blaze of glory to successfully enable my team to get the win enough times that I'm still happy to have it on my bars.

Arcane Destruction:

In solo it's easy to take advantage of this by simply casting until you're swarmed, and then instead of retreating, using Archon. The armor and resistance boosts provided by Archon make this tactic usable even by super squishy wizards such as myself. It isn't the greatest rune, though, and in multiplayer it basically never does anything.

Archon Teleport:

So named to distinguish it from the skill. Deceptively powerful, since you want to cast as often as you can while being an archon, which is to say that you don't want to waste time repositioning should it become necessary. Teleport makes it easy.

Pure Power:

I think I would use this ability no matter what it actually did, but thankfully it's also quite good, letting you access powerful Archon goodness even more often.

Part 7, Passive abilities:

Blur:

Probably the foundational passive of any theoretical tank Wizard build. Not a part of my build because I am mostly threatened by projectiles, not melee (and the melee that does threaten me, like a charging champion pack, should be avoided or I get one-shot, not something Blur can affect). Still a powerful ability and never a bad call. I have been considering this more lately as I advance in difficulty.

Power Hungry:

Better than it first appears. I ran this for quite some time and found that at least in solo it allowed me to chain AP abilities together for a very long time. I've been considering it even for multiplayer, since globes picked up by party members heal you.

Evocation:

Obviously depends on your build. I find that with Diamond Skin and Archon, Evocation becomes a compelling alternative.

Glass Cannon:

The final stand of the Wizard passive damage tripod. Once again, the 15% here happens after other multipliers and stacks multiplicatively with Sparkflint and Magic Weapon. Together the three abilities raise your damage by 48.12%. And in return, reducing your armor and resistances by 10% is only another 2-3% damage taken. That's almost no trade at all.

Prodigy:

Useful but not outstanding. From what I can tell, it does not proc per target hit by a Signature spell; it merely asks, “did your spell damage something, yes/no” and restores 4 AP if the answer is yes. Of all the runes and passives that restore small amounts of AP, this is by far the best. That doesn't necessarily make it worth using, although I do use it to recharge in multiplayer. I'm still iffy on it.

Astral Presence:

I can't imagine not taking this for any Wizard. 20 extra AP and 2 more a second is good for anyone doing anything. Flexibility wins again.

Illusionist:

Not having used Mirror Image and Teleport much, I haven't used this either. I can see the potential, but that's about it.

Cold Blooded:

Weirdly specific. Essentially this is Blizzard comboing with itself and possibly with the Comet variation of Meteor. If it can be made to work for running battles this could be very valuable.

Conflagration:

There are only a handful of ways of dealing fire damage and none of them are really that good (Fire Bolts, Hydra, Meteor). I guess a fire wizard build could take advantage of this, but a fire wizard build would have a lot of other issues.

Paralysis:

Even at 8%, nothing about this is consistent. Stunning random mobs might actually hurt more than it helps.

Galvanizing Ward:
Passive self-healing. Not to be underestimated, especially with potions on a long cooldown and health globes not consistently available. That said, it's quite situational. Most encounters are easily survived and healed up afterward through globes. Those that don't generally won't be affected by a trickle of passive healing. Some of the Act bosses tend to be long multiple phase fights with very little available healing – this is where Galvanizing Ward shines.

[Quark]

Hydra, Arcane Hydra, Lightning Hydra:

Interesting because you can fire and forget it and it will attack on the move. The downside is that even with runes the damage is very low. Another skill I haven't played with maybe as often as I should have. Definitely some potential for kiting.

Venom Hydra:

I feel like the pools of acid this leaves are contrary to the valuable things about Hydra, in that you and the enemies can be moving and Hydra still helps you out. I could be wrong.

Someone on EJB said he thinks the pools from Venom Hydra stack. That would greatly up their value, especially on certain bosses.

Not enough time for any other comments right now, plus I'm not as far in (just hit 30 last night).

[MongoJerry]

Magic Missile, Charged Blast:

Solid enough starting ability. Straight line, hits one target. The real version that's worth talking about is Charged Blast, which delivers a reasonable chunk of damage at range. As a Signature spell this is always going to be a secondary ability, since you will always want to frontload Arcane Power consuming abilities at the start of a fight in order to take advantage of its rapid regeneration. In essence, Arcane Power is the "cooldown" restricting uses of your most powerful abilities, and Signature abilities are merely fillers in your rotation. I find that this is the best of the bunch.

Split:

You gain 7% weapon damage at the cost of possibly having some of those projectiles intercepted by other things. For single-boss encounters this is okay, but you sort of have to know when those are coming up to make the switch.

Like me, you missed the key power of split. I used Charged Blast for a long time and couldn't understand why so many pug's were using Split, when the damage Split caused didn't justify it. Then, I did some testing and I understand now -- you get a separate Prodigy proc for each of the split magic missles. That is, if all three of your split magic missles hit something, you get a whopping 12 AP back. This makes Split almost overpowered, and I wonder if Blizzard will end up nerfing this in a future patch.

This is one of the only Wizard spells which is really focused on being single-target, and it's the best at it. I admit I haven't given Ray of Frost as much testing as it probably deserves, mostly because its base form is so underwhelming. You generally want your Arcane Power consuming abilities to be your AoE answers, and because Ray of Frost is so resolutely not AoE (in its ray form, at least), it becomes difficult to justify it for anything that isn't a single target boss encounter. Problematically, single target boss encounters typically require you to be running all the time, which doesn't make standing in one spot channeling a spell very easy. By Act 4 Nightmare or later, ray-type spells are almost completely outclassed unless you can somehow figure out how to stand still long enough to cast them. You can do this for normal packs, but almost anything suffices for them, and anything genuinely threatening will not allow you the luxury of standing still.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong and a 1,000 times wrong.

MISCONCEPTION: In any boss encounter, you have to run around, so I can't afford to stand in one place casting a channeled spell.

TRUTH: Every spell forces you to stand still for the length of its casting time. There are no "on the run" spells anymore. The difference with Ray of Frost is that while you are standing still, you can hit the boss with the most damage of any spells that the Wizard has (outside of Archon) and if you don't need to run again at just that moment, you can keep it on the boss until you do have to move. This is true in single player, but it's especially true in a partied situation, when a boss might be distracted for a few moments by one's compatriots. More damage dealt = less time the boss has to kill you or your party. It is very useful against end of act bosses.

Against minor bosses, it wtfpwns, because you can often stand in one place for long periods of time in these encounters.

Against champions and boss packs, it's usually best to use an aoe attack initially, but there are lots of situations after some initial damage is dealt that you want to single target a few down to reduce the size of the pack attacking you or your party. Or, you might have already cleared the minions and you want to take down the boss who's at half health. Ray of Frost will kill it fast.

What about regular mobs? There are lots of situations where there are one or two very big mobs with big health that are alone and that you need to take down fast. Big old charging bisons, guardian towers, trees, etc. Also, there are mobs that summon other mobs that need to be killed quickly or the shaman-like guys who resurrect Fallen. Those also need to be taken down quickly.

And don't forget the @^@$ treasure imps. You have to take those guys down fast before they run off into other mobs or teleport away.

There are lots of single target situations in Diablo 3, and I just can't see justifying dropping the highest powered single target spell the Wizard has (ramps up to 280% weapon damage). I use and enjoy it in many situations.

[Skandranon]

Like me, you missed the key power of split. I used Charged Blast for a long time and couldn't understand why so many pug's were using Split, when the damage Split caused didn't justify it. Then, I did some testing and I understand now -- you get a separate Prodigy proc for each of the split magic missles. That is, if all three of your split magic missles hit something, you get a whopping 12 AP back. This makes Split almost overpowered, and I wonder if Blizzard will end up nerfing this in a future patch.

I'll give this a try, although I'm not even sure if Prodigy earns a spot amongst my passives any more. I rarely use my signature spells.

TRUTH: Every spell forces you to stand still for the length of its casting time. There are no "on the run" spells anymore.

Almost none. Arcane Orb is about as close as you get, since you can turn and briefly throw one and then resume running.

I get that you really like Ray of Frost, but I just don't feel threatened by anything I can use it against. By bosses I don't mean like Belial or Azmodan, but Arcane Enchanted, Frost Enchanted, Mortar type champs or elites. If you have any wisdom as to how to use ray of frost on these guys (especially against Arcane and Frost Enchanted) I'd love to know.

[Concillian]

I see the use of Teleport as being able to "get to the other side" in a hallway fighting champ packs / rare boss packs. You wake a pack and take some damage, you're usually backpedaling and the health orbs are on the other side of the pack. Teleport through them and heal up, then use Frost nova or Impact as defensive / CC abilities to wait out the cooldown to teleport back to the other side.

I'm imagining the reversal rune being pretty good for this kind of defensive maneuver as well:
Teleport away --- kite mobs away from where you were for 4-5 seconds
Teleport back --- head for the health orbs, kiting the mobs back

It's almost like having a shorter cooldown.


Your comments are interesting, because you seem to advocate Arcane Orb as a run and gun, but you don't like Hydra or Blizzard, which can be layered on whatever else you're using. Blizzard is low DPS, but provides a significant slow. Rune for larger area of effect will be nice when at higher level. This is also the power of impactful wave, or frost nova + teleport / reversal. more casting, less running.

You seem to favor the passives, which are great in a group, but solo you give up a lot of casting time by not having some control. You get a lot more mileage out of signature spells by having some control skills like Blizzard or force wave / impactful.

I'll totally agree that Arcane Orb is a great spell though. The ability to run and gun it is great. It's a hard hitter, has some AoE, and decent damage to AP ratio single target too.

There are some other miscellaneous benefits of some of the skills.
Arcane Torrent can single out ranged monsters easily. has niche uses when ranged are killing you behind melee. Disintigrate is probably better though, since it hurts the melee too.
Energy twister is (very) lame in the open, but better for layering damage in corridors, again niche, but can be used with blizzard + meteor + teleport / reversal to keep things in the area and layering the damage from many sources. Hydra is probably a better layer than twister though. You have to try pretty hard to make twister even halfway decent.

[Mavfin]

I see the use of Teleport as being able to "get to the other side" in a hallway fighting champ packs / rare boss packs. You wake a pack and take some damage, you're usually backpedaling and the health orbs are on the other side of the pack. Teleport through them and heal up, then use Frost nova or Impact as defensive / CC abilities to wait out the cooldown to teleport back to the other side.

DH uses Vault to do the same thing.

[Skandranon]

You seem to favor the passives, which are great in a group, but solo you give up a lot of casting time by not having some control. You get a lot more mileage out of signature spells by having some control skills like Blizzard or force wave / impactful.

Yeah, I probably should have summarized the build somewhere. I'll do that now.

The build stands on the "damage tripod" of Familiar-Sparkflint, Magic Weapon, and Glass Cannon. Together the three multiply off each other to increase your damage tremendously. This is not, so far as I can tell, unintended or a bug. Without stacking these three together your damage just does not cut it, especially in 4-player multiplayer Nightmare. A friend let me know about the interaction, and after trying it myself and having success I let other people I know who are playing Wizards know about it, and they too have found a lot of success with it.

With one Signature (magic missile) and one Secondary (Arcane Orb) that leaves everything else on the list competing for just two slots, and Archon makes an overwhelming argument to be one of them. That means every other Wizard ability is competing for that last slot, and again for the flexibility argument I feel like it needs to be as general as possible. I'm experimenting with that last filler now.

[Quark]

I've seen some people advocating weapons as slow as possible to improve efficiency and dropping the Signature altogether, as mobility becomes important enough that you'll just use movement time to regen. I haven't tried dropping the Signature yet, but in moving to a slow weapon last night (and noticing the increased desire in mobility Late Act 3 / Act 4), I think it's workable.

[Concillian]

The build stands on the "damage tripod" of Familiar-Sparkflint, Magic Weapon, and Glass Cannon. Together the three multiply off each other to increase your damage tremendously. This is not, so far as I can tell, unintended or a bug. Without stacking these three together your damage just does not cut it, especially in 4-player multiplayer Nightmare. A friend let me know about the interaction, and after trying it myself and having success I let other people I know who are playing Wizards know about it, and they too have found a lot of success with it.

I think the stacking is intended, for a 4 player game, that last one can be just about anything. You can also use ray of frost with 0 AP rune and the cold passive for big single target damage that also stacks with all the other damage buffs.

There's a lot of flexibility in a group where you often have others taking hits for you.

Gearing becomes doubly important... with all those modifiers, base weapon damage is important. Moreso than 2H vs. 1H is having rings and such adding more to base damage. In NM, with all those damage buffs, a ring with +5-7 damage can be equivalent to 80 or 100 INT.

[MongoJerry]

I get that you really like Ray of Frost, but I just don't feel threatened by anything I can use it against. By bosses I don't mean like Belial or Azmodan, but Arcane Enchanted, Frost Enchanted, Mortar type champs or elites. If you have any wisdom as to how to use ray of frost on these guys (especially against Arcane and Frost Enchanted) I'd love to know.

With Arcane Frost enchanted, you get in melee range quickly, Frost Nova to stop them from casting, get a couple of Arcane Orbs off, pop Archon and melt them down before they get a chance to do anything.

I'm being partially facetious, but I specifically described how I use Ray of Frost as one tool in my arsenal and you are coming back with a "You can't use it in this specific situation" argument. Ray of Frost is very useful whenever I need to kill one specific mob quickly, and there are lots of situations in this game like that. Yes, even against champion and minor boss packs, you might have a situation where one minion gets away from the tank when you're in a party and you need to take it down quickly. Against Arcane Frost enchanted packs, you might have run a bit to get away from the ice orbs and the pack might get temporarily split up with some trying to get your Templar and you find yourself temporarily 1v1 versus a minion. Then, you Frost Nova and wtfpwn the minion with Ray of Frost before the rest of the pack catches up. That's one scenario I can come up with off the top of my head. There are lots of situations throughout the game where I switch between Arcane Orbs, Ray of Frost, Magic Missle, and (yes) Archon. Ray of Frost is merely one of the tools in my arsenal.

[Elric of Grans]

I have really enjoyed the Wizard, right from level two. It has been challenging, and I have had a lot of close calls, but I am now up to Belial and am yet(!) to have a death (EDIT: killed Belial, still no deaths). This has taken using everything in my arsenal, which means a really well designed class in my opinion. Here are my thoughts on what I have used so far:

Primary:
* Magic Missile. Quick, long-range, reliable and very effective. Boring! I think 99% of players will use this, but it is just so boring! Effective, but boring.
* Shock Pulse. I really, really like this one. Not as random as everyone says. There are three pulses (left, centre, right), which each have two possible paths (left and right have outer and inner paths; centre's paths both cross the inner paths of left and right). As such, there are two points with a high probability of getting hit. This makes the skill far more reliable and far easier to use at medium range than Charged Bolt ever was. I sit at approximately 20-30' (guess) from the enemies and spam this out. Combined with Explosive Bolts, it makes for a great Normal difficulty crowd clearer, cleaning up weak, swarmy enemies (eg Fallen) so I can save my Arcane Power for tougher foes.
* Spectral Blade. Seems a defensive skill, and there are plenty of times it would be useful in that regard, but it is not what I want from a Signature Spell. Probably the de facto choice for Tank-Mage builds.
* Electrocute. I am not really sure what this spell adds. We already have a Lightning damage spell, we already have a long-range direct target spell. It seems to fill the crowd control niche of Shock Pulse, but I feel it is less effective (and why have two spells that do the same thing anyway?).

Secondary:
* Ray of Frost. I love this spell. I clear out the trash with Shock Pulse, then use Ray of Frost to finish off the harder enemies. Snow Blast makes it fantastic against really meaty enemies and special opponents (Champions, etc).
* Arcane Orb. I was never fussed on this. If you pick Magic Missile it may be a decent choice, but I feel there are other spells that already fill the same niche, better. Yeah, it does allow kiting, but the slow movement of the projectile compared with the fast moving mobs makes it ineffective for that purpose.
* Arcane Torrent. I hate this spell. The slow, ground-targeting projectiles are a poor choice for a glass cannon. Probably a fantastic option for Tank-Mage builds, however; I would be interested to try that out.
* Disintegrate. Great spell; I think most people will use this. No real weaknesses, other than Arcane Power runs out eventually. It does not fit my personal play-style, but still a fantastic option.

Defensive:
* Frost Nova. I love this spell. It has defensive uses, offensive uses (tried packing enemies tightly together, using this with Shatter, then spamming point-blank Shock Pulse with Explosive Bolts? FUN!). I currently use it with Cold Snap so I can spam the hell out of it. The Freeze duration is short, but it gives you either breathing time or time to set something up.
* Diamond Skin. Another spell I love. I use this in Boss Battles, with Crystal Shell. When I have full Arcane Power, I throw this up, then empty the globe with Ray of Frost/Snow Blast, dealing huge damage while I take none. Also good as a panic button in general, but I find Frost Nova more fun.
* Slow Time. A really solid and entertaining spell. I do not really use it at the moment, because I like Frost Nova and Diamond Skin too much, but it looks to be another useful defensive option. Probably pretty build-specific, however; I cannot see it easily slipping into just any random build.
* Teleport. Teleport... with a cooldown? I think this will be an essential panic button for hardcore, but the fun of Teleport has been drained out for me.

Force:
* Wave of Force. I hated this spell, right from when I first unlocked it, and yet I keep coming back. I do not know why, but it just seems to fit my play-style really well. Impactful Wave and Force Affinity have both been good for me. I do not use it as much as most other spells, but it just seems to suit me better than the other options.
* Energy Twister. Meh? I tried it, I found a few ways to get decent damage out of it, but it just seemed a pretty dull option. Perhaps some of the latter runes may open it up more?
* Hydra. Again, one Hydra? Half the point of this spell in past games was spamming it. For the restriction, the damage seems a little low too. A fair choice, but it just did not suit me.
* Meteor. I have not even bothered using it. 60 Arcane Power and a delay for a mere 200% damage and a 60% DoT? It seems pretty darn under-powered for those limitations.

Conjuration:
* Ice Armour. A solid defensive option that, I believe, will be essential for Hardcore. Even in Softcore, I have given it a pretty good run simply because it is such a good choice.
* Storm Armour. Compared to Ice Armour, I was less fussed. It gives more damage (and you *will* get hit), and triggers far more reliably than Ice Armour, but I never felt it was anything special. Perhaps specific builds could benefit from this, but it does not appeal to me.
* Magic Weapon. Another really solid option, and guaranteed to the the de facto choice for Artillery-Mage builds. More damage = MOAR DAMAGE: a very, very simple equation. Oh, Runes can make it even better? MOAR POWER *grunting*
* Familiar. The base version of this is pretty meh, but the Runes sound interesting. It lacks the defensive benefits of Ice Armour, or the raw offence of Magic Weapon, but it could be a fun utility option.

Mastery:
* Explosive Blast. Wow... talk about lame. You sit through a delayed for a short-range, low-power attack, which then has a cooldown. Are they serious? You can perform other actions during the delay, so you can activate, run in, Frost Nova, explode, then clear space with Wave of Force, but the damage is so poor as to make it essentially pointless. Even the visual effect makes it look like the bomb was a dud! Probably the best choice of the three for a Tank-Mage, but still very, very lame.
* Mirror Image. A solid defensive option that I suspect will be a hardcore standard. It adds little to a softcore Artillery-Mage build, but the defensive benefits in hardcore are beyond measure.

[Skandranon]

I'm being partially facetious, but I specifically described how I use Ray of Frost as one tool in my arsenal and you are coming back with a "You can't use it in this specific situation" argument. Ray of Frost is very useful whenever I need to kill one specific mob quickly, and there are lots of situations in this game like that. Yes, even against champion and minor boss packs, you might have a situation where one minion gets away from the tank when you're in a party and you need to take it down quickly. Against Arcane Frost enchanted packs, you might have run a bit to get away from the ice orbs and the pack might get temporarily split up with some trying to get your Templar and you find yourself temporarily 1v1 versus a minion. Then, you Frost Nova and wtfpwn the minion with Ray of Frost before the rest of the pack catches up. That's one scenario I can come up with off the top of my head. There are lots of situations throughout the game where I switch between Arcane Orbs, Ray of Frost, Magic Missle, and (yes) Archon. Ray of Frost is merely one of the tools in my arsenal.

I think I've been interpreted the wrong way. I was asking for advice. I actually got myself killed a lot tonight really trying to make Ray of Frost work, because you seem to like it a lot, and I genuinely can't seem to do it. Your reference to a Templar suggests that maybe I should test in single player.

[Elric of Grans]

A distraction (Templar, friend in multiplayer) is definitely the easiest way to Ray of Frost something. Freeze or Stun effects also help, as does Ray of Frost->Knockback when close->Ray of Frost, though it is rare for something to last that long. When I see a Champion group, I use Shock Pulse to clear out any riff-raff in the area, then try to find a good distance from them. With either of the first two Runes you should be able to kill the first one before it can reach you. If there is a distraction, immediately turn to the second; if not, kite first. Rinse, repeat. I can take out a group of three Champions easily with Ray of Frost. If there are two Champion groups, or a Champion Group and a Rare, I need to pull out more of my tools.

[MongoJerry]

It's funny. Just two minutes after I made my post, Frag (tank barbarian) and I ran into a boss pack that was Arcane/Jailor. Nasty combination, right? After some laser beams spawned, I moved back a little to avoid the beams and one minion got away from the pack on Frag and came after me. I Frost Nova'd it and you guessed it, Ray of Frosted it down. I proceded to do the same thing to another minion who also later got away from the pack. A moment later, we were down to the boss only, and I Ray of Frosted it to finish it off. (After using Arcane Orb as my aoe during the fight as much as I could).

It really doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with scenarios where you need to take out a key mob in a fight. It's just takes recognizing when it's an aoe situation or a single-target situation and adjusting accordingly.

[Skandranon]

It's funny. Just two minutes after I made my post, Frag (tank barbarian) and I ran into a boss pack that was Arcane/Jailor. Nasty combination, right? After some laser beams spawned, I moved back a little to avoid the beams and one minion got away from the pack on Frag and came after me. I Frost Nova'd it and you guessed it, Ray of Frosted it down. I proceded to do the same thing to another minion who also later got away from the pack. A moment later, we were down to the boss only, and I Ray of Frosted it to finish it off. (After using Arcane Orb as my aoe during the fight as much as I could).

Ah, this is exactly what I was hoping for. A concrete example so I could actually try to figure out where the discrepancies in our experiences are. I think I see it, though - it's just a matter of game rules. I'm playing almost always 3-4 player games, and tonight it was all Hell difficulty.

When I was trying Ray of Frost and failing with it, in 4-player hell games, even a Snow Blasted Ray of Frost is insufficient to kill a minion, even though I had 140 Arcane Power and was draining it all, with all my damage increasing passives in place. Just to put the scaling in perspective, I used Archon three times during a single encounter with a champion pack this evening. On one of those uses I was able to channel Disintegration Wave for more than fifteen seconds on account of the champions' Illusionist property, and had the beam on one of the champions for the full duration of thirty or so seconds. That was a little under half of its health.

In short, the situation you describe (and ones like it) could never have happened to me under any of the conditions that applied when I was testing Ray of Frost. As a result I couldn't find anything positive to say about Ray of Frost. I would definitely feel better about it if I'd been able to single out a mob and kill it with the ray in the way you're describing.

On the strength of your earlier comment I actually went back to single player for the first time since release day and ventured out into the desert to try Ray of Frost. I did still feel it was suboptimal for Hell difficulty but I acknowledge that under such conditions it has some value for single-target situations as I didn't have to deplete all my arcane power to defeat a single enemy, and I could also channel the beam while being attacked to finish off a target.

That said, even with just one other player (another Wizard) we were having such trouble finding a useful time to use Archon that the other wizard dropped it entirely for Diamond Skin. If even Archon had these issues, I find it hard to believe that Ray of Frost won't. I am very interested to see if your opinion changes as you advance into Hell difficulty if you continue to duo, especially against champion and boss packs as I consider the storyline bosses to be relative pushovers.

[Crusader]

My current build at level 38, act 2 nightmare:

LMB: Magic missile - charged blast.
RMB: Disintegrate - Chaos Nexus.
1: Diamond skin - Crystal shell
2: Fireball - Molten impact (can better be swapped out with wave of force in some locations)
3: Magic Weapon - force weapon
4: Archon - Arcane Destruction

Passives: Evocation, glass cannon, Astral Presence.

Ok. How this works is easy. First of all, you can easily see this build is focusing at immense damage output. But how does it work? The key skill in this build is diamond skin. With crystal shell it effectively gives invulnerability for 6 seconds every 13 seconds (almost 50% of the time). This means that while it is active, you do not need to dodge. This is very important for my build, as I will at that time use either a fireball if an enemy pack is in melee range or disintegrate if they are in a line to me (which is often). Both are high damage powers, especially with the many buffs this build has. Astral presence ensures a fast reloading of arcane power. Archon is the panic button or the tough baddy eliminator.

Encounters usually start at range with either a meteor (if the enemy is not engaging yet) or disintegrate (while the baddies are running towards you). Once they reach you, without letting go of disintegrate, you can activate diamond skin. The enemy will start attacking you but the damage is absorbed. Should a lot of critters come into melee, fire a meteor at yourself.

Of course this doesn't always work. Sometimes a cascading retreat is necessary while you await for diamond skin to come back up again.

Champion packs and elites are usually doable, but the tough ones require archon. Not a problem, especially not considering the reduced cooldown. the fight will start with damaging the enemy as much as possible, using diamond skin as soon as they are about to damage you, and at the end of diamond skin activating archon (hopefully while they are in melee so they get hit with the 450% blast). Then tap 1 for another huge blast and start wailing on them.

The only times this build seems to fail is when you have nowhere to run, but this is mostly limited to the beginning of dungeons. Sometimes it's better to use wave of force in place of meteor too. It's defensive in nature and can be used at the end of a diamond skin to buy those crucial extra seconds.

Solo (with templar) I am able to decimate almost anything that I come across. In mutliplayer it heavily depends of what allies I get. If I got some tanks or crowd controllers, this works great. If not... well.. there's always another game.

[Skandranon]

An update now that I'm level 60 and have access to everything.

Magic Missile, Attunement:

Situationally useful for regeneration. It depends on what you're doing with passives and whether you can take Prodigy or not.

Magic Missile, Seeker:

Occasionally fails to seek but is a very solid choice. If you miss at least once every seven shots it pulls more or less even with Charged Blast and only gets better if you happen to miss more. That said, there seem to currently be some issues as to whether it tracks properly. Most of the time on storyline bosses it will do fine.

Shock Pulse, Lightning Affinity:

This requires that you use unimproved Shock Pulse. This gets increasingly harder to do and by hell difficulty you almost certainly will not be doing this.

Shock Pulse, Living LIghtning:

This has much less range than I thought and does very little damage. The range is the biggest issue. If I want to AoE with this spell I'll just use Piercing Orb which does more damage and can reach to the edge of the screen.

Spectral Blade, Healing Blades:

Apparently there's a strange gimmick tank-Wizard build out there that uses this to heal up. It is apparently viable through Nightmare, but I haven't heard anything from it since. For those of us who aren't doing that this doesn't improve the spell at all.

Spectral Blade, Thrown Blades:

I had high hopes for this but then I forgot that characters are ten Diablo yards tall. This extends the spell's range by a tiny amount that doesn't even really count as out of melee. If you're going to use Spectral Blade, something else probably makes more sense.

Electrocute, Surge of Power:

At most this is three AP per cast and only if there are three targets and only if you're using Electrocute which has awful damage. Just no.

Electrocute, Arc Lightning:

Turns Electrocute into a short fan that still does pathetic damage. The one thing Electrocute had going for it was range. This takes that away for absolutely no return, since you could probably Chain Lightning as many enemies that fit in the fan for just as much damage and much safer range.

Ray of Frost, Black Ice:

Like Explosive Bolts and Volatility, this rune's effectiveness decreases dramatically at higher difficulties when you just aren't killing targets as quickly. Importantly, all of these abilities seem to be implicitly used for mowing through normal, non-minion, non-champion, non-rare packs. And you can kill those with anything.

Arcane Orb, Celestial Orb:

Unmentioned in the description is that it actually makes the orb 10 yards wide, the size of the explosion. When you upgrade this you fling a ridiculously long-ranged disc of death that smashes everything in its path for 175% weapon damage. I certainly couldn't find it in myself to pass it up.

Arcane Torrent, Power Stone:

The stones drop at the point of impact. So I have to stand still and channel them and then run over toward the enemy to pick them up? No thank you.

Arcane Torrent, Cascade:

Another one that triggers on kills, and increasingly less useful for the same reason.

Disintegrate, Intensify:

While hitting for much more damage with Disintegrate sounds good, Intensify also intensifies Disintegrate's ray-based disadvantages by forcing you to stand still to activate it. You're going to need to be grouping with a lot of melee to buy yourself the space for this.

Frost Nova, Deep Freeze:

In general as you progress in difficulty, every rune has to be better than Cold Snap in order to be worth considering. This isn't, although it's better than it first looks. In Hell difficulty hitting five things is not that uncommon and the boost actually lasts long enough to do something with it.

Frost Nova, Bone Chill:

There appears to be a difficulty-based duration reduction on freeze effects. In Hell I rarely see anything frozen longer than maybe one and a half seconds. I suppose this is usable if you're running Normal at level 51.

Diamond Skin, Enduring Skin:

Situationally useful if you aren't precisely sure when you're going to get hit, but the original six second window is usually wide enough, and in Hell you really, really want Crystal Shell.

Diamond Skin, Diamond Shards:

This is actually okay since it happens when Diamond Shard wears off for any reason. But again, it's just a little damage which is much less compelling than Crystal Shell.

Slow Time, Perpetuity:

Useful whenever Slow Time is useful. Not much else to say. The static nature of the bubble actually makes this spell substantially less effective at higher difficulties than I thought it did.

Slow Time, Stretch Time:

Again, the running battle nature of higher level combat means that at any level where you have this it won't make a big enough difference. Anything that a barbarian can actually hold in place can be beaten without this.

Teleport, Fracture:

Combining two moderately useful spells results in actually a sort of decent ability. Distance and distraction in one ability. Hardcore players will love this.

Teleport, Calamity:

Ideally a rune for teleports into hot zones. Usable offensively but that will probably kill you as well. I'm not sure I like this as much as Wormhole if the point is defense or escape.

Wave of Force, Exploding Wave:

It's probably at least as good as Impactful Wave if you're surrounded, but not as good against one or two targets. I prefer Impactful because sometimes you'll have to use it against one or two. Of course, Wave of Force is competing against a lot of other slots and it tends to get crowded out against Diamond Skin and Energy Armor.

Energy Twister, Wicked Wind:

This is probably the best Twister rune since you can place it behind you as you run, so that it is sure to hit something. Of course, they have to make up for it being useful by hitting its damage really hard. You still aren't going to get the full six seconds out of it, so this is really competing with Blizzard which does its job way better.

Energy Twister, Storm Chaser:

At least the giant twister fired from accumulating Storm Charges goes straight and it has good range. The part that sucks is that you have to cast 3 completely unimproved Twisters first.

Hydra, Frost Hydra:

Short range cones actually work okay for things that aren't yourself. This frost damage unfortunately doesn't snare, but if you're being chased by a horde this is actually a good option. Unfortunately you are not likely to be chased by a horde often enough for this to warrant a spot on your bar.

Hydra, Molten Hydra:

Range and area of effect, counterbalanced by lower damage. I'm not sure what people are looking for out of Hydra is AoE, but it does have a higher chance to hit. Note that it only has one head, so the damage reduction is more severe than it first appears.

Meteor, Liquefy:

You'd need an entire dedicated crit set and a legit barbarian tank grouping with you to make this work. Most people won't have one or the other.

Blizzard, Stark Winter:

This is probably about as good as Snowbound for the same reason.

Blizzard, Unrelenting Storm:

I don't like this as much as the other two. Mobs aren't likely to be in the six second original duration anyway, so two more seconds doesn't help as much. If you want to slow down enemies behind the first set, Snowbound and Stark Winter do exactly the same thing and also let you do other things with the spell.

Ice Armor, Ice Reflect:

This is actually really nice, but it isn't reliable and competes with Energy Armor. Also this is outcompeted defensively by, well, Frost Nova. And if you already have that, Diamond Skin is a much better next choice, even if you pass up Energy Armor.

Ice Armor, Frozen Storm:

As a reminder, Ice Armor costs 25 Arcane Power to cast. When I spend that kind of Arcane Power, 10% weapon damage per second over 3 seconds in melee range isn't what I call an acceptable return.

Shocking Armor, Scramble:

Running is a great part of defense, but it's not the only part. It's hard to choose this over Energy Armor.

Shocking Armor, Shocking Aspect:

Criticals are rare and a little damage to a nearby enemy is again not worth giving up Energy Armor.

Magical Weapon, Venom:

It does some extra damage, but 5% increased damage from Force Weapon is better since reapplication of Venom doesn't increase the damage done, but with Force Weapon you can cast more than one spell in a 3 second window.

Magical Weapon, Blood Magic:

Can be a useful method of health regeneration. Galvanizing Ward is a better choice, but if you can't do that and can't put steal on your weapon, it can be worth using this.

Familiar, Arcanot:

A nice way of getting AP back. I prefer sparkflint to hit harder, but there's a curious combo combining this with Astral Presence and Cold Blood to cast Ray of Frost forever, providing that your weapon is sufficiently slow. (To clarify, the calculator says Cold Blood reduces the cost to 0, but it is actually to 12 in the live game, and it pulses at your weapon speed. So it is consuming 12*attackrate AP per second, and for any two hander that will usually be from 11 to 14.)

Familiar, Cannoneer:

Any attempt to use Familiar as direct damage is missing the point. Like this one.

Energy Armor, Pinpoint Barrier:

Not worth the max AP reduction. Especially since it's competing against things that are.

Energy Armor, Force Armor:

All indications is that this is a forced choice in Inferno. Apparently no degree of currently available defensive statistic stacking is capable of keeping a Wizard alive for more than three hits anyway, so Wizards run this instead, ditching all their Vitality gear such that Force Armor reduces the hit to a low absolute value. Then they simply stack life replenishment gear and are unkillable by anything other than three hits in a row. Before Inferno it can be useful as you get closer to the end of Hell difficulty, where even in single player mobs begin to get close to one-shot range.

Energy Armor, Prismatic Armor:

If you're taking Energy Armor's AP hit already, Force Armor is, for now, a better way to do it.


Explosive Blast, Obliterate, Chain Reaction:

Even with Obliterate you never really want to be close enough for this to work. Trying it deliberately is an exercise in frustration. Chain Reaction actually asks you to stay in range for three seconds. The only way this would work is if you could guarantee you would not get hit.

Mirror Image, Mocking Demise:

The stun is what you want, not the damage. Stuns are increasingly more powerful in Hell difficulty and probably in Inferno. This is a legitimate option for people who can fit Mirror Image into a build, but very few people have been able to do that.

Mirror Image, Extension of Will:

Images are unlikely to live to the end of the base life or duration anyway, and the increased life isn't enough to change that.

Mirror Image, Mirror Mimics:

Yet another awkward attempt to graft offensive attributes on to a defensive spell. The plus is that maybe the monsters target the images more? It's hard to tell without a lot more testing.

Archon, Slow Time:

This is actually a pretty decent rune. Unlike the Wizard's, the Archon's Slow Time bubble moves with you, and a defensive ability can sometimes make the difference between being able to stand still with Archon without being shredded, and not.

Archon, Improved Archon:

Although this is probably what you want. Slow Time still doesn't help you sit in the middle of a pack with Archon, so realistically you're still only using it when conditions can set it up for you. When you do, you want it to pack the maximum punch.

Temporal Flux:

I wanted to like this so much. I have not yet been able to actually detect any discernible snare on things I care to have snared. If I can't snare a champion mob or minion running me down, being able to snare normal mobs is not a helpful compensation.

Critical Mass:

Maybe when we're all kitted out in Inferno gear we'll crit more than 5-10% at a time. Until then this doesn't do much.

Arcane Dynamo:

A lot of Inferno boss battling is spamming magic missile. In theory this should help a lot when you inevitably cast Arcane Orb, but it's hard to justify this over some more solid passives.

Unstable Anomaly:

Goes off pretty much all the time in Hell, but the knockback isn't very significant and the 60 second cooldown is troublesome. The good thing is that the cooldown resets when you die, meaning that if this goes off, you die, and revive, you get another right away if you will need it (and you probably do).

[MongoJerry]

When I was trying Ray of Frost and failing with it, in 4-player hell games, even a Snow Blasted Ray of Frost is insufficient to kill a minion, even though I had 140 Arcane Power and was draining it all, with all my damage increasing passives in place. Just to put the scaling in perspective, I used Archon three times during a single encounter with a champion pack this evening. On one of those uses I was able to channel Disintegration Wave for more than fifteen seconds on account of the champions' Illusionist property, and had the beam on one of the champions for the full duration of thirty or so seconds. That was a little under half of its health.

You're right that I still have to see Hell, so it's entirely possible that my opinion may change. However, it has been my experience so far that the more people in the game and the higher the mobs' health, the *more* effective Ray of Frost becomes. No, I may not be able to kill a key mob on my own with one drain of the AP ball, but I do a heck of a lot more damage to it than I would have had a I used any other spell. In order to finish it off, I either have to use a signature spell to help replenish AP and then fire Ray of Frost again, or I count on another teammate to assist me in focus firing it down. The fewer members of a pack running around, the better for everyone. When mobs have little health, then other spells can be "good enough" to take down a mob, but when they have a lot of health, I want to have the highest dps spell I can get.

Again, though, it's situational. Ray of Frost is one tool in my toolbelt. If the mobs are grouped up enough that I can damage them effectively with Arcane Orbs, I'll do that. However, for me, I can't forsee dropping the highest damage single target spell that a Wizard has (ramps up to 280% weapon damage) any time soon.

Skandranon, can you summarize the skill combinations you are using right now that you have found effective in hell against champion and boss packs?

[Appletree]

Someone on EJB said he thinks the pools from Venom Hydra stack. That would greatly up their value, especially on certain bosses.

They do stack. I was doing a ranged wizard first, but it was pointless. Vortex enchated bosses killed me again and again, so changed to a high vitality plus shield setup. Holding bosses in place and letting poision hydra do the work. I fear they are going to nerf that beast.

Tankmage is so much fun to play, especially because there seems to be a lack of tanks on the European servers. I'm in act3 nightmare now, don't know how this will work in inferno...

[Skandranon]

Skandranon, can you summarize the skill combinations you are using right now that you have found effective in hell against champion and boss packs?

From around levels 51-60 I've been running:

1) Archon-Slow Time, and then Archon-Improved Archon

I used Slow Time to buy myself more time to burst with it, but especially duoing with another Wizard, Archon was getting me killed a lot. Last night I found openings to cast it in a 3-player game with a barbarian, but those openings were very brief and still resulted in blaze of glory deaths a couple of times.

I think I still use this just because I love seeing big numbers, not because it's a better choice. I would probably live a lot more and be more effective if I had Frost Nova or Diamond Skin instead in this slot.

2) Familiar-Sparkflint

I stll run the entire damage tripod although I think this is the leg that it can most afford to lose. In Inferno boss videos (although these are not a good predictor of generalized builds since they're usually customized for the encounter, like WoW raid specs), nobody uses this.

For me the reason is simple: things need to die quicker, and more damage does that. If I were to put something else in this slot it would be Frost Nova or Diamond Skin.

3) Energy Armor-Energy Tap

I like the generalist ability of this combination to both boost your defenses and raise your Arcane Power so it's useful on both offense and defense. At least in many cases this also let me take something like 4 hits from minions and 3 from bosses when without it I'd probably die in one fewer hit in each case.

I'm likely to be changing this to Force Armor soon as boss and mob hits are ramping up. A normal, non-minion, non-boss Act 4 Hell mob hit me for 32k in one shot yesterday, even with this up.

4) Magic Weapon-Force Weapon

Same damage theory as Familiar-Sparkflint except this is better. Even the people running Inferno squeeze this into every build they can. Magic Weapon seems to have a greater effect than 15%, and I'm now thinking that it is not the multiplicative interaction of effects but just Magic Weapon which is the source of most Wizard damage.

For example, with just Glass Cannon I have 13200 displayed DPS. Sparkflint alone at a nominal value of 12% takes it up to 14600. Magic Weapon alone at a nominal value of 15% takes it up to 17200.

LMB) Magic Missile-Split or Magic Missile-Charged Blast

I've been going both ways on this. Split is more theoretical damage, especially against very large mobs. It also lets me spam missiles in the general direction of the enemy and get hits, especially if I am trying to shoot offscreen. Of course, Charged Blast is also very good.

Shock Pulse-Piercing Orb is another option for this slot. I've experimented with dropping the Signature but I still use it too often for that to work.

RMB) Arcane Orb - Celestial Orb

Tap the Source would probably work just as well, but I prefer the giant-sized orb since it is an excellent AoE answer and is also great in running battles since the giant radius means I'm far less likely to miss/the mobs are far less likely to avoid it. It also seems to have longer range than the standard Arcane Orb which means I can pitch it from really far away which is a good bonus.